Love

[Ghogiel]

I don't understand how a discussion on what exactly love is could get so heated..

 

IMO though if you think love is nothing more than a biological need with nothing but rationality tied to it, I think you need to reevaluate what being Human means to you.

Really? it makes perfect sense to me that 'love' would be a heated topic. I fully expect nearly everyone to have hands on experience of it, romantic, sibling, child, parent, plutonic. I think we can all have input and that should in theory allow for a large amount of different perspectives.

 

My humble request is for people like yourself to be more open minded of other peoples views and not judge and call into question their humanity because their opinion on love differs to yours.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Ghogiel

[marharth]

Those are not my words. Those are from direct experience with battered women. (I was a cop, not a batterer, thank you very much.) The profess they "love" said person, and therefore cannot/should not leave them.

 

Not to mention, I find it kinda funny that you are willing to assign motivations to someone you don't know, have never met, and have no experience with.

What motivations do you refer? :unsure:

 

I simply pointed out that these illogical actions are not love. It may make you do stupid thing... and oh boy can I attest to that, hence the saying, "the things you do for love.." but those actions are not love as in the emotion.

 

further more, have you excluded the possibility that those illogical actions can be explained by a logical cause an effect? Perhaps you have all sorts of brain chemistry going on making you in a sense love drunk.

 

Ah, I see where you are coming from. You are separating the 'emotion' from the actions it causes.

Once again, we are talking about the cause, not the effect.

 

I think everyone here agrees on the effects of love, the question is what causes it.

[draconix]

To simplify things for those having trouble with the concept, we can compare love to hunger.

Someone who is starving may act illogically in order to get food, like put themselves in physical danger for instance. This does not mean that hunger is illogical.

Similarly, a person in love may act illogically because of their emotions, like staying in a bad relationship. This does not mean that love is illogical.

[Aurielius]

To simplify things for those having trouble with the concept, we can compare love to hunger.

Someone who is starving may act illogically in order to get food, like put themselves in physical danger for instance. This does not mean that hunger is illogical.

Similarly, a person in love may act illogically because of their emotions, like staying in a bad relationship. This does not mean that love is illogical.

Simplify all you want Love has rarely been logical, hunger is a physiological response to a lack of nourishment, don't eat an sooner or later you die..simply biology. All the attempts to scientifically reduce love to a set of equations have failed in the past and I suspect will fail in the future. Why some of you want to reduce this to an experiment that can be reproduced is beyond me. The only conclusion I can come to from the 'love is scientifically' explainable crowd is that they have yet to have had the true experience, the madness, the joy, the depths of despair and the peaks of fulfillment that comes with finding your true soul mate. I pity you, because that has been the goal of most of humanity since time immemorial.

 

Post script: Dan3345's point is spot on, couldn't agree more.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Aurielius

[Dan3345]

I'm sorry in my head that didn't sound quite so provocative.. I didn't mean to call into question people humanity over this. I just meant to say that love is something so intertwined with the essence of humanity that to rationalize it, seems demean its value. At least to me.

[marharth]

To simplify things for those having trouble with the concept, we can compare love to hunger.

Someone who is starving may act illogically in order to get food, like put themselves in physical danger for instance. This does not mean that hunger is illogical.

Similarly, a person in love may act illogically because of their emotions, like staying in a bad relationship. This does not mean that love is illogical.

Simplify all you want Love has rarely been logical, hunger is a physiological response to a lack of nourishment, don't eat an sooner or later you die..simply biology. All the attempts to scientifically reduce love to a set of equations have failed in the past and I suspect will fail in the future. Why some of you want to reduce this to an experiment that can be reproduced is beyond me. The only conclusion I can come to from the 'love is scientifically' explainable crowd is that they have yet to have had the true experience, the madness, the joy, the depths of despair and the peaks of fulfillment that comes with finding your true soul mate. I pity you, because that has been the goal of most of humanity since time immemorial.

 

Post script: Dan3345's point is spot on, couldn't agree more.

Did you not see the previous posts explaining brain science?

 

We all know the EFFECTS of love, which is what you describe. We know its a good feeling, and experience has nothing to do with it in this case. We are not discussing the effects of love.

[Ghogiel]

The only conclusion I can come to from the 'love is scientifically' explainable crowd is that they have yet to have had the true experience, the madness, the joy, the depths of despair and the peaks of fulfillment that comes with finding your true soul mate. I pity you, because that has been the goal of most of humanity since time immemorial.

This is a baseless conclusion. And one you end with a supposition that you have found the meaning of life. Your subjective experience of life is not a universal truth. Though I find that it is not in anyway dissimilar to my interpretation. I don't necessarily believe in a soul mate. but you'll know it when it's right. As imo love is something that grows.. stronger over time.

 

I'm just not going to underestimate humanities curiosity and potential to understand the complex.

Edited August 23, 2011 by Ghogiel

[draconix]

The only conclusion I can come to from the 'love is scientifically' explainable crowd is that they have yet to have had the true experience

The only conclusion I can come to from this post is that you have yet to have had the true experience of using your brain. I'm usually not so courteous when someone makes personal attacks against my marriage. Know that if you decide to stoop so low again, the gloves may come off. :nuke:

[greywaste]

The only conclusion I can come to from the 'love is scientifically' explainable crowd is that they have yet to have had the true experience

The only conclusion I can come to from this post is that you have yet to have had the true experience of using your brain. I'm usually not so courteous when someone makes personal attacks against my marriage. Know that if you decide to stoop so low again, the gloves may come off. :nuke:

 

Hmm, so he claims his "targets" might not have experienced love and you respond by calling him stupid. Rather a lot of your responses to other people are like this aren't they?

Please try not to ruin the thread, some of us are enjoying reading it.

[Dicecaster]

To simplify things for those having trouble with the concept, we can compare love to hunger.

Someone who is starving may act illogically in order to get food, like put themselves in physical danger for instance. This does not mean that hunger is illogical.

Similarly, a person in love may act illogically because of their emotions, like staying in a bad relationship. This does not mean that love is illogical.

Simplify all you want Love has rarely been logical, hunger is a physiological response to a lack of nourishment, don't eat an sooner or later you die..simply biology. All the attempts to scientifically reduce love to a set of equations have failed in the past and I suspect will fail in the future. Why some of you want to reduce this to an experiment that can be reproduced is beyond me. The only conclusion I can come to from the 'love is scientifically' explainable crowd is that they have yet to have had the true experience, the madness, the joy, the depths of despair and the peaks of fulfillment that comes with finding your true soul mate. I pity you, because that has been the goal of most of humanity since time immemorial.

 

Post script: Dan3345's point is spot on, couldn't agree more.

There it is, in it's full glory: reduce. None of us have been saying that we want to reduce love to anything. Everything HAS to have a cause. It is literally impossible for something not to. It doesn't have to be a physical or chemical cause; if you said that magical elves caused love, we could argue that, because it's a cause. Furthermore, it is or can be possible to observe the cause of something. We (at least, I) are/am saying that it is or can be possible for humans to understand the cause(s) of love. That's it. It will still hold all the qualities you describe, and may become even more fascinating should we come to understand its origin.

 

@greywaste

Dude, that's the guy you want to go off on? Of all the at least semi-mean/rude things that have been said, that seems like a weird place to step in.

Edited August 23, 2011 by Dicecaster